Tribunal Witness Describes Khieu Samphans Support for Revolution

In this photo released by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Khieu Samphan, a former head of state for the Khmer Rouge, gestures as testimony is given during his trial at the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, file photo.

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In this photo released by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Khieu Samphan, a former head of state for the Khmer Rouge, gestures as testimony is given during his trial at the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, file photo.

PHNOM PENH - Jailed Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan worked to encourage children to help overthrow the US-backed government of Lon Nol, a witness told the UN-backed tribunal Tuesday.

Kim Vun, 53, who worked in a Khmer Rouge printing house, said Khieu Samphan, who would become the nominal head of the regime, visited the printing house often to give advice to its workers.

Khieu Samphan is on trial alongside Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary for atrocity crimes committed by Khmer Rouge under their leadership.

Kim Vun said Tuesday that Khieu Samphan, known as Brother Hem, would bring vegetables and food to the printing house and encouraged resistance to the Lon Nol regime for the sake of the then-deposed monarch Norodom Sihanouk.

“He called for success on every battlefield and called on villagers in liberated areas, as well as cadre, to assist and support each other, from the front lines of the battlefield and behind the lines of the battlefield,” Kim Vun told the court.

Around 600 years ago, the people living in the remote Cardamom Mountains in southern Cambodia placed the bones of their dead in large jars on steep ledges hidden deep in the jungle.
Ten years after discovering a large grave site full of jars, researchers are still baffled as to why ancient Cambodians used jars in this way. AP reports from Koh Kong province, Cambodia.